


Ark Awaits

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Biblical References, Christianity, Disabled Character, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Psychological Horror, Queer Themes, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no light at the end of this tunnel.</p><p>Soundtrack: http://8tracks.com/softgrungegreaser/ark-awaits</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: vomit, food.

They find Jay, eventually.

He's passed out on the bank of the river, covered in mud and scratches. There's leaves and more mud in his shaggy, unkempt hair, like he hasn't known a hairbrush in years, let alone a pair of scissors.

It's so different from the buzzcut they remember him having that they barely recognize the shivering body half-submerged in water.

He's so pale. So cold. But their noses don't betray them. They can smell the frantic beating of his heart.

He doesn't notice, or doesn't seem to be able to hear, the crunching of twigs and leaves as they approach. He doesn't move as they stand over him, observing him, making sure he is, in fact, Jay Merrick.

He screams when they reach for him, but he goes limp when one of them throws him over their shoulder.

Jay coughs, and then throws up. Another half-hearted scream is cut off as he heaves up something black and sticky like tar that leaves a messy trail down their jacket. He pukes up lungfuls of bloody riverwater and black gunk until his sides ache and the wound there threatens to open.

“Good, good, clean out your spirit,” the one carrying him says. Jay shivers and begins to cry, retching and sobbing all at once.

“He doesn't understand you,” their companion points out.

Above them, the branches groan and rattle in the bitter wind. They shuffle through the woods on a memorized trail between the trees. Jay stays relatively quiet and submissive, spitting out whatever is left in his tired stomach. He flinches when they pat his back, but he sniffs and stops clawing at their jacket in a weak attempt to wrestle himself out of their hold.

His hands are stained with black.

They reach a clearing where the canopy of trees part to reveal the clear night sky, and they make their way through the tall grass to the house situated in the darkness. Silently they place Jay on the porch, and he wraps his arms around himself.

His fingers are numb. His throat hurts. He can hear the crickets chirping, and the sound of a river in the distance. Eyes half-lidded, he refuses to look at them. 

“You,” he whispers. It hurts to speak. “You...”

The one in the mask goes to remove their jacket for him, but their partner stops them, gesturing at the splatters of black all over their clothing. They remove their own hoodie and cover Jay in it. He curls up around it and promptly passes out.

Their work done, they disappear back into the woods.

.

“Where were you two last night?”

Jessica stands before Brian and Tim like a mother scolding her children. She always looks them in the eye when she talks. It's unnerving, and cuts right through any lies they might come up with.

She casts a quick look behind her to make sure no one has woken up and wandered into the kitchen. “I saw you coming up the stairs back to your rooms. It was like, what, four o'clock? You better be thankful nobody else has trouble sleeping. And, you're welcome, I mopped up all the mud.”

Tim's shoulders sag. “Shit.”

“I'm not going to tell anyone until it becomes a serious concern. But I want to know, what were you actually doing?”

Brian and Tim exchange a look.

“Do you remember?”

“No,” Tim admits.

She sighs. “Well, there wasn't any blood. Neither of you looked harmed. I guess -”

“Wait,” Brian says. “I lost my jacket. We woke up and couldn't find it anywhere. Do you think that has any importance?”

Jessica shrugs. “I don't think so. You were covered in mud, no matter your jackets. You dripped water everywhere, like wet dogs...” She stops as Amy walks into the kitchen. 

“I'm _starving_. Do I smell pancakes?” she says with a yawn.

“Yeah,” Jessica smiles, the tension in her face gone as if it had never put wrinkles around her eyes. “Come get them before we eat them all.” 

Amy makes her way towards the counter, eyeing the food. “So, what were you guys talking -”

“Will you help me with these?” Tim holds out the plates. Amy nods and helps him set up the table.

He looks over his shoulder at Brian and Jessica, as he passes under the archway into the dining room.

The rest of the household shortly finds their way towards the table, lured in by the smell of Jessica's cooking. Sarah's chair scraps on the wood floors as she takes her seat; she stretches and pokes Seth to wake him back up from where he's almost fallen asleep on his plate. Most of the mornings at their house consist of this - the clatter of silverware, the sleepy yet warm laughter, the creaking of the stairs as everyone makes their entrance, the morning light coming in through the windows and softening the edges of the room.

“You gonna have any pancakes with that butter?”

“No,” Tim says as he pours syrup all over his plate. “I'm going to have some syrup with my butter.”

Brian laughs and leans forward to poke his fork at Tim's plate. He triumphantly spears a pancake and takes it back to his own, trailing syrup behind.

Sarah calls out, “Hey! Keep this table clean!”

“Why?” Brian gives her a cheeky grin. “It's your turn to clean next, isn't it?”

“Yeah, and I'm always cleaning up after you slobs.” Her nose crinkles, but she smiles when Brian cleans up the mess with a napkin.

“So, what were you guys up to last night?”

Tim and Brian turn to look at the far end of the table. Amy waves her fork in the air as she speaks. “I heard you leave pretty late. What were you doing?”

“Making out in the woods.” Tim kicks him under the table. “It was very romantic.”

“Shut up -”

There's a knock on their door.

Everyone freezes. No one makes a sound for a few seconds until Brian swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. There's another knock, and then Jessica stands up.

She hesitantly calls out, “Hello?”

Someone coughs violently on the other side of the door.

“I swear to God, if he's here again, I'm going to kick his teeth in.” Tim's voice comes out almost as a growl.

“Just open the door," says Amy.

Jessica reaches out and touches the doorknob. The handle is cold. She reaches for the umbrella stand by the door and wraps a hand around one of the rifles they keep in there, just in case. She turns the doorknob slowly.

The table is dead silent.

“Hey, Brian,” Sarah pipes up. “Isn't that your jacket?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> again, warnings for vomit, and mentions of surgery i suppose?
> 
> im going to be taking some liberties with seth, sarah, and amy, since they never got much time in canon, but will be getting time in this fic

“I didn't know you had any medical training.”

Seth turns red as he adjusts the bandages wrapped around Jay's abdomen. “Yeah, um...I'm not really a trained doctor. I've just been reading a lot on this stuff so I could help around here. We needed someone to do something like this, so, I figured, why not me?”

He waits for Jay's reply, but he doesn't get one. “...I've got steady hands,” he offers.

A sudden sharp pain in his stomach makes Jay wheeze. It isn't the small hole in the left side of his body, but right underneath the bandages. He tries to pull at them, but Seth reaches out and stops him.

“Keep those on. Sorry, I know they're tight, but I don't want you taking them off,” he says calmly.

Jay groans as the pain slowly fades. He relaxes against the pillows and breathes deeply. “How long do I need these? They're...kinda itchy.”

“Can't say for sure.”

Jay sighs. Seth gives him a sympathetic look and starts picking up the towels on the stool by the bed. They're filthy, stained with some black substance that makes them stick together. He has to tear them off from each other; it makes a wet sound, like pulling out of mud, as they separate. For some reason, Jay would much rather them be covered in blood. The mere sight of the towels makes him feel sick.

He doesn't have to ask where it came from. He can still feel the stickiness on his skin.

He turns his head away and looks out the window. There's barely any space between the glass and the trees, inches away from the house. The sunlight turns the leaves into a rich shade of green. Vaguely he remembers a river, and being carried under dark branches. He shakes his head.

For the first time since he's woken up in this faux doctor's office, he considers actually asking the question that's been nagging at him.

“...Seth.”

“Yeah?”

“Where are we?”

Seth pauses. His hands hesitate over the stack of towels. “Uh. Well...”

_“Where am I?”_

“Look, don't get mad at me. I'm not the one to ask.”

“Who do I ask, then?”

Seth meets his eye and quickly looks away. That was always the difference between the two nervous men – Jay was stubborn, where Seth was passive.

“Don't ignore me,” he pleads. He winces as he props himself up on his elbows.

Seth tries to ignore him, but when he adds, _“ Please,”_ he sighs and faces him.

“I said, don't ask me. Or any of us, really.”

“So you don't know where we are? Who's house is this, even?”

“I...it's our house now. That's all that matters.”

“You're freaking me out.”

“There's no one else in these woods!” Seth had never before raised his voice; Jay recoils. “And _it_ isn't out there, so we're safe here. We're safe and that's all that we need.” He repeats it to himself, softly. “We're safe here. We're safe.”

“...Okay,” he mumbles, too shocked to speak up.

“Sorry, Jay, it's just...we're all very happy you're here now. Get some rest, okay? And don't try to wander around. You need to heal.”

Jay watches Seth get up and head to the door. When he can hear his footsteps going down the stairs, he carefully starts to unwrap his bandages. He grimaces as he pulls it off and leans forward to see what is on his stomach.

Across the skin, looking like it was recently stitched back together, is a long, clean scar.

.

All throughout the day he can hear people coming and going through the house, but no one ever enters the room except for Seth. He comes in to fuss over Jay, who neatly rewrapped the bandages himself, and to bring him food and water. Seth blushes and fumbles whenever Jay thanks him, but he's not so bad at being a doctor.

It hurts to eat, but he's used to forcing down food he doesn't feel like he can swallow. However, the pancakes he's given sit like lead in his stomach, and he regrets managing to get down anything at all.

In the late afternoon he finally gets his first genuine visitor. Jessica walks in quietly, as if afraid to disturb him, and gives him a small smile.

“Hey." She meets his eyes but talks to him like she's at an open casket funeral.

“Hey,” he croaks back.

“So, how are you holding up?”

He shrugs. “Good. I'm good.”

“That's good. Yeah.” She looks around the room, even though there's no one else on the two other empty beds.

“So, uh,” he clears his throat. “How is everyone else?”

“Um, they're...around. Doing work. Keeping this place together.” She smiles for him again. “Busy. But we're all concerned about you.”

“Oh...okay.”

“You know, you look a lot different with longer hair,” she says distractedly.

The simple comment gives him a headache. He doesn't know how long it's been since he was shot, or how long it's been since he arrived...here. Wherever this is.

Her smile suddenly drops. “God, sorry, I can't stand this. Tim has been asking about you all day but he's too nervous to come up here and see you himself. Brian and him - they've been bothering Seth with questions. They're outside the door right now.”

She shouts behind her, “Just come in here already, you big babies!”

The door opens slowly, and Brian and Tim shuffle inside the room. Tim has his hands stuffed in his pockets and won't lift his eyes from the floor. Brian waves awkwardly at Jay and keeps behind Tim. One hand clenches around the smooth head of his cane until his knuckles are white.

“Aren't you going to say hello to Jay?” Jessica puts a hand on her hips and wags a finger at them. Jay finds himself reminded of his mother.

“...Hi, Jay,” Brian says finally.

She takes a deep breath through her nose. “And Tim?”

“Hey,” Tim mumbles. He lifts his eyes from the floor, and Jay blinks back at him.

It should probably feel more important, more meaningful, to see Tim again. He should be holding his breath or wanting to jump up and greet him. But he stares blankly back at the man he's shared too many horrors and hotel rooms with. Not to mention Brian, who he barely knows but feels a chill run down his spine just seeing his naked face. He looks a little older than Jay remembers from him in college, but he has the same handsome jawline and kind eyes. Not scowling or sneering, threatening or enigmatic. The sunlight from the window behind Jay makes dim shadows in the contours of his face.

“I'll leave you alone.” Jessica walks briskly past Brian and Tim out the door, throwing a pitying look at all of them.

Brian is the first to step forward. His cane raps against the wood floors with each step.

“So, I know we weren't the closest friends back in the day, but I've heard a lot about you.” He laughs weakly. “To be honest, I'm a little bit jealous of you. You're pretty strong, you know? To go through what you did. And...thanks for being there for Tim."

He seems to reach his word limit and clamps his mouth shut once more. 

Jay doesn't know what to say to that. He nods silently.

Brian smiles, strained and uncertain. He moves away from Jay's bed as Tim gets closer.

“I'll leave you two here. I know you both, um, have some history together...Wow, I'm really not used to stammering.” Brian fidgets, laughs again, and then heads for the door. Tim mumbles something after him that only Brian appears to catch.

“Um,” Tim says to Jay.

“Hey, Tim.”

He looks around nervously. “God, this is awkward, isn't it? I think I'm going to tear up. I'm serious.”

Jay tries not to laugh, not only because it will make his stomach hurt, but because Tim _is_ being serious. “It's nice to see you again.”

Tim definitely looks like he's about to cry. “Same, same. It's...it's very nice to see you again. I know we didn't – didn't leave off on the best foot -”

“It's okay,” Jay whispers. “I ran off on you and messed up. Did you get my voicemail?”

“...I got it too late.” He wrings his hands. “It's all my fault. I'm sorry, Jay, I'm so sorry, I'm totally going to cry right now, fuck, fuck, I'm crying right now. I left you there, no camera, no food or water even - ”

At least Jay has the excuse of being stuck in bed for his lack of offering comfort. Tim collapses on the stool by his bed.

“I thought you weren't going to show up,” he says through his tears. “Everyone else did. Even Alex. I waited for you, and I thought – I worried you were trapped or something, and weren't going to make it. I was sure I had done something wrong. I would have rather been stuck than you.”

“What?” Jay perks up. “What do you mean?”

“I - “ Tim catches himself, aware that he's revealed too much. “Nothing. I just mean, show up at the house. We've all...showed up at the house.”

“Alex is here?”

Tim frowns. 

“Where's Alex?”

“You're ruining this emotional moment, Jay.” Tim wipes his nose and stands up.

“Wait! You're hiding something from me! Why won't anyone tell me anything?”

“Don't ask about Alex,” Tim reverts back to grumbling. “Don't ask about him if you're going to stay here.”

“Tell me!”

“Glad to see you're okay,” Tim mutters and makes his escape out the door, slamming it behind him.

.

Seth promises him he can leave the room soon, but he won't be able to leave the house for a while. He doesn't exactly feel like going near those woods, anyway.

He roams around at nighttime when he doesn't feel like his body is going to split open. He takes his time exploring the house, and listens closely for the sound of footsteps. The whole house creaks and groans, and he learns the difference between the sounds stairs and floorboards make.

He was never one to walk quietly, though, but he doesn't really care if they know he's getting up at night. They're keeping secrets from him, after all.

A familiar distrust hatches in his chest - not as physically painful as his scar, but close enough.

Oddly enough, he keeps hearing birds. All the time. He guesses the birds here won't quit. From dawn to dusk, he hears the birds chirping as if they're inside the house with him.

He can't keep down food. Frequently he finds himself throwing up, and half the time he doesn't tell Seth. He limps to the bathroom, clutching his abdomen, and hurls what's gnawing inside him in the toilet. 

Tonight is the same as usual. His face is pressed to the seat, a dribble of vomit leaking from his mouth. His knees are too weak to stand back up, so he sits there, drooling and feeling overall disgusting, until someone finds him.

“Jay?”

He recognizes Jessica's voice and groans.

She doesn't ask what he's doing out of bed; she dabs at the puke around his mouth with a tissue and gently pulls him up from the floor. Shivering, he leans on her and presses his hands against his bandages.

The idea comes to him out of nowhere. “Jessica, Jessica -” he gasps.

“What? Are you okay?”

“Can you cut my hair?”

She looks at him with utter confusion. “W – what?”

“Do you have any scissors? I can do it myself.”

She sees the desperateness in his eyes and can't imagine a reason why she should turn him down.

“I...sure, Jay. I can do it. I went to beauty school, actually, before the...But right now?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Okay. Let me just go get some scissors,” she promises.

He takes a seat on the counter, back against the cold mirror, and thinks he would love nothing more than for those birds to shut up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> something like an interval, that takes place not too long back.
> 
> warnings for animal death early on, and human death later.

Out in the dark, a rabbit screams as a fox breaks its neck and carries it off in its mouth, dragging the body from its burrow and into the underbrush to eat. Amy knows it's a fox and not some other nocturnal predator lurking in the bushes, because she saw it today as she left a package outside her window.

She saw its gray snout peaking out from the grass, eyes locked on the bag of food in her hands. The fox watched her and then silently disappeared back into its world. The animals never come near the house, as if they know it doesn't belong there. The birds never get close enough for her to hear them in the morning.

The fox's tracks are marked along the riverside where it hunts, but in the forest it can't be followed so easily.

Amy can't be followed easily, either.

Unlike the rest of the house, she knows that when you need to leave without being heard, you don't go down the noisy stairs. The upper floor has a lot of windows, and her bedroom has two that face the trees.

She takes out the hiking boots she keeps under her bed and pulls them on. Through the window she climbs out onto the nearest branch, the one that drags against the glass in the wind. She would cut it off if it wasn't so useful. The scratching isn't so bothersome, she tells herself. Doesn't remind her of unfathomable beings watching her, always watching. Doesn't bother her at all.

Amy shimmies down the tree, thankful for all the rock climbing classes she took over the years, and lands quietly on the ground.

The wintery night welcomes her like an old friend with a cold embrace. Her breath comes out in a fog and she pulls her jacket tighter around herself. She picks up the bag at the foot of the pine tree outside her window.

Before she disappears into the woods, she glances at the sky. Gray clouds as far as the eye can see. Rain must be coming. She can smell it in the air, like a ghost of the weather to come, or a warning.

She hurries, keeping away from the river. The risk of bumping into other night-crawlers sends her deep into the forest, away from the river birches and towards the thicker, older trees. There's no animals to fear - just the people she lives with. She knows what they get up to at night. They're awful liars and terrible at covering things up. Like their tracks.

The makeshift cabin is easy to miss from where it's nestled between the trees, and she almost does when she walks right past the door. She doubles back, and squeezes between the trunks of two watchdog-esque trees to knock on the door. Their leaves rustle overhead, mumbling at each other, and she looks downward at their roots instead of their ominous bark faces. 

She makes sure to knock softly, in case he's sleeping. If he is, she'll leave the package and let him get his rest. He gets so little it worries her.

Amy picks at her nails while she waits. She used to be so careful about her appearance, and now there's always dirt under her nails and twigs getting in her hair. It's petty to complain about, she knows, but she wishes she could have that simple comfort of long, hot baths again. They have a functional bathroom at the house; she doesn't know where the water or electricity comes from. She can't relax in there.

By the time he answers the door, she's leaning against a tree and trying to keep herself awake. She straightens up, alert, when she hears the doorknob turning.

She smiles at Alex, and lifts up the bag in her hands.

“I brought you food,” she says cheerfully.

He takes a while to answer, and when he does, he whispers, “Sorry. You can't come in right now.”

Alex looks frightened and disheveled, like usual. But he always smiles back at her. It's what keeps her coming back, really. He holds the door barely open and stares through the crack at her with cautious eyes.

“I walk all the way out here and you don't even invite me in?” she jokes. He can't be serious. It's freezing out here, and he expects her to just deliver his food and leave?

“I'm sorry, Amy.” She swallows. His apologies are so unbearable, because – _I'm sorry, Amy, but this has to be done, you have to die, we all have to, I'm sorry, he kept repeating and she felt herself dying she felt her heart stop and somehow she can breathe now_ \- he looks like a kicked puppy. “Sorry, but...come back tomorrow night. Not tonight. You can't come in tonight.”

“Why not?”

He goes to shut the door, and she quickly jams her foot in the way.

“Thank you for the food, Amy, really. But you have to leave. Now.”

“Why, Alex? Just let me in.” She feels anxiety creeping under her skin. The last time he started to shut her out, things went to shit, fast.

She wonders why she bothers helping him, and immediately she feels guilty for it. He's bony and exhausted and no better than before. He needs her. If only they'd let him in the house...

“Please,” he whispers. He looks behind him. “I...there's...”

“I can't hear you.”

He leans out the door, keeping it only inches open. “There's someone else here. There are some...they're talking.”

She doesn't know how to respond. She moves her foot out of the way. He looks around at the trees, up at the sky, anywhere but her, and slams the door shut.

Amy leaves the package at his doorstep. She glances at the moon, orange-yellow like a blinking firefly, peeking out from the canopy overhead. She waits a moment, listening for the sound of crickets or Alex talking to "someone else," but the night is so unnaturally quiet it's like the cabin behind her doesn't even exist.

She makes her way back to the house and through her window before two figures deposit a body on the porch.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: ableism and the fun joys of hating your brain, brought to you by tim. but really though, lots of internalized ableism.

From downstairs, Brian can pick out the muffled arguments of Sarah and Jessica. Sarah found muddy footprints leading from the back door to the kitchen, where they end mysteriously. She wants to investigate, worried that Alex is crawling around at night. Jessica does not want to investigate, knowing who is crawling around at night.

She protects them for inexplicable reasons Brian doesn't understand. There's a wordless trust between Jessica and Tim that Brian is included in by association. On stormy nights she visits Tim and Brian's room like she knows neither of them can sleep, and she doesn't mind staying up the rest of the night to talk about nothing in particular, anything besides trying and failing to sleep. 

Tim is very particular when it comes to receiving and showing affection, but Brian sees the half-hugs he gives her, the pats on the back, the warm looks, the ease and familiarity of their interactions. They know each other.

He gets that as long as they don't lie to her, she won't lie to them, but she will help to cover up their tracks. Why was Jay wearing Brian's jacket? Oh, he left it on the porch this morning, when we were having coffee together. It's hard to question Jessica or accuse her of deception when she comes off as so forthright.

That's about the extend of his understanding. Exactly like with Jay and Tim – he's missed out on the lonely nights and hopeless mornings when getting out of bed seems impossible, missed out on the times he should have been there for his friend.

He's not going to miss anything now, not if he can help.

“So you don't think it's a problem that somebody - maybe Alex - is sneaking around here when we're all asleep?” Sarah presses on.

“I think we're overreacting. All of us are very tense.”

“You mean _I_ am. You think _I'm_ overreacting.”

“That's not what I said.”

“That's what you _meant.”_

Tim doesn't turn around when Brian follows him out onto the balcony. Last night's rain left the air so crisp and fresh it burns when Brian takes a breath. He rubs his hands together for warmth.

Tightly wrapped in Tim's fingers is the rosary he's kept in his pocket since the day he gave up cigarettes. He quit cold turkey, in part because he didn't have access to cigarettes anymore and because he legitimately decided he wanted to. He presses the rosary to his lips, eyes closed.

“What's bugging you?” Brian leans against the rail and watches Tim.

“Why do you think anything's bugging me?” He opens his eyes, and Brian smiles when he catches his look.

“You're freezing your ass out here instead of sleeping.”

“You look too happy for this time of morning.” Tim pointedly looks away, failing to hold back a returning smile.

“It's 'cause I'm with you.”

“You're a sappy asshole.”

“But, really, Tim...” He nudges his shoulder. “What's up?”

“I...” His smile flickers. He sighs, and rolls the rosary over in his hand. “I'm scared. I don't think I can do it. Go down there. Face them. Leaving this room sounds like the scariest fucking thing to me right now.”

“Nobody's pointed any fingers at us. Nobody expects us of anything.”

“That's not what I'm worried about. It's....I'm crazy, aren't I? I'm fucking crazy.”

“Tim -”

“I'm a psychopath, a danger. Running around in the woods, in that mask I thought I'd gotten rid of. But I can't get rid of it, because I can't stop being so fucking delusional. It's a wonder you can sleep in the same room as me.”

“I run around in the woods, too,” Brian reminds him.

“Sorry. I didn't mean to say you're...like me. You're the most normal person I know.”

“No, you don't have to apologize. Except to yourself,” he says. “You're too hard on yourself. And none of us are 'normal,' anyway. Everyone here is scared and doesn't know what to do. But you are the one who's had to deal with this the longest of us all.”

“Not everyone thinks they talk to God.” He waves his rosary in Brian's face. “See? See? I hide this under my pillow when I sleep because I think God talks to me. And I listen, because I really do think He talks to me. Crazy, right?”

“No. You're not hurting anyone, or yourself. You're not unhappy. I can't say for sure you're happy, but you're better, and I want you to feel better. You _deserve_ to feel better. I think, whatever He says, it helps you, to believe in this. Is that such a bad thing for you?”

Tim stops. “Christ, Brian...stop being so good at comforting me when I'm trying to bring myself down. I don't know how you can like a psycho like me. Why do you stay? Why do you try to help?”

“That's not true,” Brian protests. “You feed yourself and take showers without anyone reminding you. You get sleep when you can. You take care of yourself. You laugh at my bad jokes. You're my friend, and Jessica's friend. Jay's friend, too, even when you're tip-toeing around each other. Everyone in this house cares about you. There's a lot, Tim, that you're doing.”

“...You're going it again. Being ridiculously good at comforting me.”

“I tell you, you deserve it.”

He loves when he gets Tim to smile. Genuinely smile, not the thin-lipped smile he puts on when he thinks he needs to. The natural smile.

Tim loops the rosary through his fingers. “Still. I can't do it. I can't go out there.”

“That's alright.” They're close enough so that their foreheads press together. He squeezes Tim's arm for reassurance. “If it makes anyone suspicious that you aren't with me, I'll tell them you have bad diarrhea. Then they won't want to ask more questions.”

“Oh my _God,_ don't you dare,” he giggles. 

“I'll bring you up some food.”

"Wait -" Tim grabs onto his arm, and his words come out in a rush. "Jay looked at you like he _knew._ Like he knew you were the one in the hoodie. How could he know that if he -" Tim swallows. "If he was dead before I found out myself."

"He's been looking at everyone funny because he knows we're holding something back from him. I don't think he knows about that specifically. I mean, he would have said something, right? Now you need to relax and take care of yourself." Brian pulls off Tim's hands from where they're wrapped around his arm and takes them into his own. He holds Tim's fingers to his mouth so the wood beads press against his lips. Tim watches him and nods silently.

Satisfied that Tim won't have a panic attack as soon as he closes the door, Brian promises him he'll be back in a few minutes, and goes downstairs into the flurry.

.

Jay tosses and turns throughout the night, but the silence of his room is lulling instead of haunting. Every once in a while he hears an owl howl outside his window, but he doesn't have to squeeze his eyes shut and force himself to sleep. It comes to him naturally, for once, and he falls asleep to the sound of frogs croaking and the rain _pitter-pattering_ on the leaves and rooftop.

He dreams of his hair in the sink basin and the reflection of the scissors. Hair, feathers, and the guts of cassette tapes go down the drain. Jessica's hands are gentle, although he can't see her in the mirror. Metal grazes his ear, snip, snip, as the scissors get too close. 

The dream turns foggy. Where the scissors end and his skin starts blurs. He lifts up his shirt, and Jessica takes his head in her hands. Not Jessica. They won't let him look down. He can feel the scissors, a blade, running over his flesh. His face.

A garbled voice in his ear. _Initiation._ He wants to sleep. Please. Please. No more staying up until dawn cracking puzzles, please. They're talking to him. They put something over his face, cold, hard. He can't look out of it, but he's standing over his body, from a bird's eye point of view. Top surgery scars, a line across his stomach, a bullet hole in his side. Talons dig into his shoulder. Now he'll have scars there, too.

They run underneath the kaleidoscopic roof of their home, trying out the noises these bodies can make, howling, crying, dancing. Birdsong, inside and out.

But shush, and take off their shoes. It's the respectable thing to do. They'll get mud everywhere.

Jay wakes up holding back a scream. The bandages around his midsection are sweaty, and he can feel the beginnings of a rash. Apparently he doesn't deserve one single night of decent rest. His groan is muffled by his pillow, and he kicks off his blankets.

He swings his legs off the bed and blinks away his grogginess. The instant he tries to stand, he swoons and reels back onto the bed. 

Not just his stitches are sweaty. His body feels like it's burning up; every inch of his skin is slick and warm. He dry swallows some ibuprofen Jessica left for him and tries not to choke on the small red tablets.

“I'm dying,” he rasps when Seth walks through the door with a plate of food.

“You look terrible, but not on death's door.”

“I'm _dying.”_

“I'm sure you're going to make it,” Seth laughs. He puts the food down on an empty bed and feels his forehead. “You've got a fever, though. I'll get you some ibuprofen...” He realizes there's a bottle on Jay's bedside table. “Who brought you that?”

“Uh.” It wouldn't hurt to tell the truth about this, he supposes. “Jessica did, actually.”

“When?”

That's the end of the line for Jay's honesty. “This morning. She came in before you.”

“Really? She's been having it out with Sarah for a while. She must have dropped by before I woke up.” 

“Yeah, she...came in pretty early. Said she thought I might need some.”

Seth nods to himself. Suddenly he exclaims, “Oh! I almost forgot! The rain's slowed down. It's beautiful outside. We're going to have a picnic tomorrow, if it stays like this. I think it would be good for you to get some fresh air once the fever dies down. What do you think?”

“A...picnic?”

“Yeah. We'll take some blankets and food and go down to the river. It'll be nice.”

The idea seems extraordinarily strange to Jay, like something a group of friends who aren't traumatized and in woods they aren't familiar with would do together on the weekend. He heard Jessica and Sarah's shouting match. He's sure Tim's pissed at him for asking about Alex, and that's why he hasn't visited him since. His relations with everyone else hang on a delicate balance of distrust and hope.

He asks the safest question he can think of. “What about Jessica and Sarah?”

“What? They'll be fine. They fight a lot – they're ex-girlfriends, they're used to it - but they're friends.”

Jay mulls over the thought of a picnic. He can't find another excuse not to go. Actually, he sort of wants to go. That's new. Inserting himself into social situations willingly isn't a usual thing for him.

“I guess...I guess I'll go. Either that or stare at the wall for a couple hours.”

“Great! I'll tell everyone,” Seth beams. “You don't need to be walking heavily, with your stitches. We have a wheelchair that Brian uses on and off, when his cane doesn't support him enough. You can use that.”

“If you think I should.” No matter how much he wants to, he doesn't bother prying into where they got a wheelchair in these woods. It would lead to more arguments, and no answers.

“I do. Have you been taking short walks?” Jay freezes. Did Jessica tell him? “Like I asked? You need to be stretching a little bit, but not too much. Across the room and back would be fine.”

“Uh, yeah. Short walks. I've been doing that.”

“Good. Be careful, and don't force yourself to go too far. With this fever, however, you better stay in bed until it fades. Shouldn't take any more than a day or two.”

For someone who didn't attend medical school, Seth makes a decent doctor. He changes Jay's bandages, apologizes whenever he winces, and rattles off more suggestions. Finished, he leaves Jay to eat his breakfast and get his own.

The sight of the eggs and orange juice makes Jay queasy. He takes one bite of the eggs and pushes the plate away. Executive functions are beyond him. He smells his armpits, grimacing. Far beyond him.

He looks down at the end of the bed, where the blankets he kicked off pile on top of his feet, and he yanks them off. He's too hot to sleep under the covers.

Before he slumps back onto his pillows, he notices how filthy his feet are. He keeps his shoes, which he rarely needs to wear, under his bed, but when he looks for them, they look like they've been through hell and back.

He shivers, partly due to his fever and the fact that the bottoms of his damp socks are covered in mud.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: body horror, blood, possibly gore.

Sarah keeps watch on the porch, taking shifts with Brian, who got roped into sharing night duty when no one else offered. They've done this before to prevent tensions from splitting the household apart, because they've seen enough apocalypse movies and gone through enough crap to know what collective paranoia does to a group of survivors.

Usually Tim fills the spot Brian's taking, but he hasn't left his room since the morning. Jessica gives her word to Brian that she'll be there for Tim in case he breaks down.

“Is that a knife in your boot?” Brian shambles out of the house. The wind chimes that Amy thought would brighten up the place twinkle and jingle in the breeze. A gust of air ruffles his hair, and he yawns as he zips up his jacket.

“I can't decide what joke to respond with – no, I'm just happy to see you, or, at least it isn't a snake." Sarah's cheeks are red from the cold, but she faces the direction of the wind without a shiver.

Brian laughs. His lips are cracked, and he tries to smile without breaking the dry skin. “But a knife? Really?”

“I borrowed it from the kitchen. I would have preferred a gun, but somebody would notice one missing.”

“Borrowed?”

“It's a _precaution._ I'll put it back when I'm done with it.” Sarah adjusts the weapon tucked in one of her socks. “This is a more uncomfortable than I imagined it would be.”

Back in the house, Jessica brings Tim a cup of tea to calm his nerves. She throws a brief look out the window, at the darkening sky, and hopes on whatever higher power there may be that nothing goes wrong tonight.

“I'm surprised you aren't out there with Sarah,” Tim says. He dumps five sugar packets in his tea and stirs. He takes way too much sugar with his tea and cream with his coffee, and drinks enough of both that it can't be good for his heart.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means you're head over heels for her, and haven't been very good at hiding it since we found her in the basement.”

“Well, the last time I saw her, she was screaming and throwing my clothes out the door, and I had to move in with Amy and – move in with a happy couple and have it rubbed in my face every day. I heard she disappeared, and I didn't do anything. Offering to take shifts with her would be awkward. It's not like I can go up to her and say, hey! Want to hook up? Like the good ol' times when we weren't scared of our own shadows?”

“I don't see why not. You both like each other.”

Jessica does a double-take. “She...likes me?”

“Come on. Of course she does. It's obvious with the way you two dance around each other. It wouldn't hurt to patch things up, would it?”

 _”Jay_ obviously likes you. He asks me about you when I visit. Why don't you patch things up with him?”

Tim stiffens. “That's none of...I'm back with Brian. We're together. And monogamous.”

She glances at Tim, and says quietly, “You had something with Jay, didn't you?”

“Let's drop it.”

“Oh, so we can dig into my romantic life, but not yours?” She laughs. “When we talk about this stuff, actually, doesn't it make things seem less...dark?”

Tim's hands shake as he brings the cup to his lips. “Does it feel like doomsday is coming? There's this unshakeable feeling I have, that something terrible is on the horizon.”

“I know what you mean,” Jessica admits. The dread. The anticipation for everything to fall to ruin. It keeps her up at night, too. “Everyone has been looking forward to the picnic. I didn't want scare anyone by saying anything.”

The tightness in Tim's shoulders eases. He looks at her with relief. Last night he held onto his rosary and listened, _prophet,_ to the warnings, _soothsayer._ “I wonder if anyone else feels it.”

.

The sunset puts Jay on the verge of panic.

“My dreams are getting...intense,” he says to Seth when he checks in to see if the fever's died down.

“I don't know how to help you with that,” Seth confesses. He gives him extra pillows and advises him to take the ibuprofen with his dinner, so as to not upset his stomach.

He's terrified of going to sleep. When he rests his eyes and falls asleep for ten minutes, he pinches himself to keep awake. Around midnight his deprived brain gives in, and he slips into another nightmare.

This time, he can hear what the people in the mirror are saying.

“It's kind of funny, looking back on it.”

Flecks of white peel away from the surface like old wallpaper. He bristles at the metallic tang in the air, sharp and choking. 

“He fell on me, and everyone freaked out. I tried to hold him up, but when I saw the blood I flipped out, too.”

“He was bleeding like a stuck pig, but didn't say a thing. Didn't scream or cry out. His eyes were bulging, and I stood up to help, and he looked at me like – I can't get it out of my head, how scared it made me. Good thing we have a doctor.”

Jay opens his mouth to cough, and his tongue blooms – wild roses and water lilies, soft rush and cowslip. His teeth are the next to go, and the flowers and bone fall to his feet.

Wet grass stretched taunt over a skull. Rows of blocky canines outlined by black moss.

“No, he was coughing up blood. I remember because I had to clean the floor, _again_ , right after you and Brian made a mess with your sleepwalking.”

“He wasn't coughing. He was silent. He had this huge cut across his stomach, like some animal had slashed him open. That's why Seth had to give him stitches.”

“I don't remember any of that. Wasn't it because he was shot?”

This time, he can look away from the mirror.

The skull is made of awkward edges and sharp lines. The arms reach down to his knees. Jay looks at himself, this rough, hideous version of himself. His jaw is entirely wrong. His spine is one long knife carving through his skeleton.

He stumbles towards himself. Which self? Himself runs away.

“The moon is waning. Ask, but carefully, or the answers will get too careful for you to hear.”

Jay gets the distinct feeling that he should not be able to understand the voice like cicadas crying and teeth chattering. He tucks his knees to his chest, ears ringing, and tries to wake up. If he recognizes it as a dream, he can wake up, can't he? That's how dreams work, right?

“A higher power is watching. Always watches, no eyes.”

“God?”

“Gods.”

He closes his anatomically incorrect maw around his head and gingerly crushes his skull.

Mercy kill.

.

Jay wakes up with tears on his face. He sniffs and wipes his reddened eyes. He wants to jump into a pool of ice water or sleep in a freezer for a couple decades. 

His vision takes a while adjusting to the darkness.

He jumps when he notices someone crouching on the stool next to his bed. He can't see clearly, but he recognizes who they are by the silhouette. 

“Tim?”

“I'm trying something new,” he murmurs.

The room is hazy and contracts around him. He's not awake enough to question what Tim's doing here at such a late hour.

“This is our home. You're welcome. They let me back in. I'm welcome. Shouldn't be here, they'll be mad. But, trying something new.” His mouth moves clumsily when he speaks, as if he isn't used to the words.

“Are you okay?”

He touches his face and presses his fingers into his eyes. “Tim's alright. He's fine. Mad I didn't bring him the tiny white blasphemies. Oops. Had much more important things to get from outside. So he rocks back and forth, mad at me, very mad, and mad at himself. Can't sleep. Oops. Like uneven pieces of paper, put together, we put together the paper and get our rest, or get out. In great rows of ichor, garden beds, ichor in the roots, flowing. And paper?” He sways on the chair. “But he's fine. I'll get him the blasphemies, in due time. Yes.”

Tim must have missed his meds, or the blasphemies, as he's calling it. Tim told him once about word salad, the shaky pattern of speech he reverts to when he's severely out of touch with reality, but Jay has never been the best at support and he doesn't know if Tim would want any from him. He's seen Tim derealize before but not to the point of talking about himself in third person. Before he can think of a response, Tim gets up unsteadily and staggers over to the bed.

“Um, you want me to get Brian? I can -” Jay starts, but then his bed dips and Tim is pawing at the blankets, trying to wriggle under the covers. 

At first, he's so frazzled he doesn't move. He feels the warmth of Tim's body and jerks away. “What are you doing?”

Tim gives him a puzzled look. “Going to bed.”

“Tim, this is my bed.” He gently pushes him away so they aren't touching.

“So? You can share.”

Don't panic, don't panic, he tells himself.

“Look, Tim, you should go back to your own room. You can't sleep here.”

Tim frowns, but he willingly crawls out of Jay's bed. Jay closes his eyes and hopes he doesn't sink back into another nightmare.

Shortly after he hears a mattress creaking, and he looks over to see Tim collapsed on the bed opposite him.

“That's. Okay. Yeah, you can sleep there.”

“Do you think those are dreams?” Tim asks suddenly.

“What?”

“You think those are dreams, right?”

“What do you -”

“The fever will pass. Ask carefully.” Tim blinks at him, the purple bags under his eyes almost black. “Get your rest, or get out.”

“Wait!” His stomach turns as he realizes something off. “What language are we speaking?”

Tim grins in the darkness. “Told you. I'm trying something new.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: derealization, mentions of alcohol and self harm, and food.

“Flesh brother.” They flatten their palm against his. Their fingernails are purple and their skin is blue-white. “Not brothers of blood, or the water of the womb. Of body. Flesh brother.”

He might be imagining this. He might not be. He's lost track of the faint line between what's real and what isn't real, having long since crossed it.

He opens his mouth to speak, but they press a bony finger to his lips and whisper, “Ssssshh.” They extend their other hand, pointing a long, pale index finger towards the prone man on the bed next to him.

Not next to him in bed, but in the bed that is next to his bed, because Jay wants to make it absolutely clear that there was no bed-sharing going on last night.

Jay gets the hint. Half-lucid as he is, he remembers how to nod, and his flesh brother curls up against his back. Their eyes are so wide that they look like they're going to fall out of their sockets. Their jaw can't close, making them speak with a lisp, but he isn't so scared of their teeth anymore. His cheekbones aren't as prominent as theirs; they look like they haven't eaten in forever.

They look sad. Their feet stick out over the end of the bed in a sort of comical way, like they don't know how to fit themselves into a space that isn't suffocating. He would ask them about it, but he gets the feeling that they'd shush him and advise him more about being careful.

But he isn't in a position to judge. They are him, aren't they? His stomach grumbles. Oh, yeah, eating is a thing he needs to do. They need some food, too. Can they eat? If he eats, does it nourish them?

Their skin is warm to the touch, sweaty and feverish, and he realizes he hasn't felt sick since they appeared. The presence of his flesh brother makes him feel so much better. Like he doesn't have to be in control.

He blinks. Where they were laying, the bed is cold and empty.

Blankets rustle, a mattress creaks, and, from the only other occupied bed in the room, Jay hears a barely audible, angry _”Fuck.”_

There is nothing as awkward as waking up and seeing his ex (but they didn't have a word for the nights they shared) looking right at him.

“You still snore really, really loud,” says Jay quietly.

“Well, good morning to you, too.”

Tim sits up and stretches. He hasn't shaved in a while; Jay likes the beard. Distantly he wonders if Brian kisses him in the morning, even with the bad morning breath. He doesn't want to hate Brian, but he's probably an excellent kisser and good in bed and comforts Tim when he needs a hug and keeps him safe and happy and makes him his favorite food and gets to cuddle him -

He should have pretended to be asleep. Anything besides the brittle air between them, sharpened by everything unsaid they need to get off their chests. Both of them are very, intensely aware of the fact that Jay hasn't moved on, and Tim wants to pretend they're going to be okay if they stay here, stagnant, deteriorating, refusing to search for answers or escape.

Human beings sit down and talk, work through their emotions, and figure out a compromise. Neither of them remember what being human implies.

On the tip of Jay's tongue are questions that are likely impolite to ask, _how's it going with Brian, do you remember last night, did you know you tried to crawl in bed with me, that must have been you because you didn't have the mask right,_ so he swallows them down. At least, he believes, he's gotten a little better at social cues. Ask carefully. “So, uh. Ready for the picnic?”

Tim snorts. “I'm out of medication, my head is throbbing, and the floor is moving at light speed. What about you?”

“My brain is...” Jay gestures around his head as if that explains it. “Melting.”

“Yeah, same.”

“But my fever's gone, I think.”

“Huh. That's good.”

The conversation comes to an unsure halt. Tim coughs, and Jay has a moment of panic, because coughing means bad shit is close by and bad shit means run and running means static in the footage and waking up with no memory of how he got there.

He waits for the sudden flicker in the air, the indicator of a looming threat. It doesn't come.

Tim notices him stiffen, and he says in a hurry, “I – I'm, sorry about how I was acting last night. Look, I don't mean to scare you, but. But.”

“It would take a lot to scare me at this point.” What a lie.

“No, no, no, it's...Guess the cat's out of the bag. Jay, you have to promise not to tell anyone else. They wouldn't listen, they're too scared, they'd kick us out.”

“Kick you out? For being unmedicated? They couldn't do that. Our friends aren't horrible people like that.”

“I don't know how to say this. It's not about my schizophrenia, or epilepsy, or anything.” His hands are unsteady as he runs them through his hair. “The mask. It's about the mask. I have it still, but they don't need masks anymore.”

Jay says without thinking, “Your flesh brother?”

A glimmer of fear. “Oh God, did they talk to you?”

“I remember you talking to me.”

“It was with my mouth, but it wasn't me talking. They call me flesh brother. I...hear them, sometimes. But don't listen to them! They're dangerous. What did they tell you? Don't believe them, whatever they say or do.”

He tries to recall last night. “You were talking about when I came to this house, how I was bleeding everywhere.” His head swims. That's not it. “No, you weren't. They were talking about...why does it matter? Why are they so dangerous?”

“You know why!” Tim scoffs.

“I don't, actually. I don't think we should repress them. Maybe they have something important to say. Maybe they know something about what's going on!”

Tim starts to say something, but he cuts himself off and looks at Jay quizzically.

Jay snaps, “What?”

“You're bleeding.”

Jay wipes his nose and stares blankly at the blood. “Oh.”

“Hey,” Tim's voice softens. “We talked about getting you medication once, didn't we? We can still get some for you, when I get mine. If you want. It's possible. To me, it sounds like you're experiencing -”

“Please don't,” he says. Tim wants to be normal - it hurts, it hurts to make himself function normally and force down any behavior that could be called bizarre. He shouldn't have to worry about that here. The trees can't call him insane. There is only dirt and the indifferent wildlife.

Tell me about your God, Jay thinks. Tell me what He says, and what your flesh brother says, and we can sob and scream and laugh off-pitch. Show me your rosary and I'll show you my feathers.

Feathers? He tips his head back, and the blood trickles down his throat. Feathers. He doesn't have any feathers. He isn't like those unrelenting birds outside.

“I really think it could do you good.”

Jay shakes his head, mouthing, _“Stop.”_ He can open his mouth, he can imagine himself saying it, but he can't say out loud a single word. It dies in his throat.

“It's up to you, but hear me out. I think -”

Tim and Jay jump as the door slams open, and a laughing Amy stumbles into the room, Seth right behind her.

“Come on, nerds! It's a beautiful day out, Jessica made enough sandwiches to feed a small country, and I wanna go skinny dipping!” She breaks through the tense atmosphere with a giggle. “Hell, I just want to get naked and have fun. If only we had some booze! Then it'd be a party.”

“She woke me up by dumping icewater on me,” Seth says.

“It wasn't icewater! Just very cold water I didn't waste time heating up.”

“Yeah, just very, _very_ cold water, alright.” Seth rolls his eyes. “We're not having a party, you know. It's only a picnic.”

“It could be a party if we wanted it to be.”

Seth brings Brian's old wheelchair through the doorway and rolls it up to Jay's bed. “This thing was torture getting up the stairs. Amy and I had to carry it up. How did Brian get to his room before he got his cane?”

“He used to sleep in the kitchen,” says Tim.

“I remember that, because you slept downstairs with him,” Amy nods. “You're so in love with him. It's adorable.”

Tim makes a face, and Jay's caught between wanting to laugh and wanting to disappear.

“I wasn't here yet, I guess,” Seth says.

“You came with Sarah. Jessica told me she heard Sarah panicking in the basement -”

“Don't we have a picnic to go to?” Tim interrupts.

“There's a basement in this house?” Jay asks, watching the three of them carefully.

Nobody answers him.

.

Amy wasn't exaggerating when she said the day is beautiful. The sun is warm on Jay's face, and he stares at the clear sky as a murder of crows takes off from the trees. The smell of wet dirt and grass lingers in the air. Down the river a ways, in the shallower parts of the water, he can hear frogs croaking. 

He takes a bite of his sandwich, and he isn't prepared to taste so much at once. Tomatoes, lettuce, chicken, mustard, cheese, wheat bread. It's so rich he has difficulty swallowing.

Brian, dangling his feet in the water, wearing only his shorts, laughs as Amy splashes Sarah and tells her to lighten up. The only ones not in the river are Jay and Brian. Brian's back almost gave out hiking down to the river, so he doesn't want to risk swimming. Tim wades by the bank, staying close to his boyfriend.

When Amy ran whooping and stripping towards the water, Jay isn't sure if she got entirely naked or not. That's one mystery he'd be happy not to solve.

Tim is shirtless, except for his binder, and swimming in his boxers. Stretch marks and pink faded scars crisscross his skin. His hair, dripping with water, lays flat on his head and his forehead. Jay guiltily stores the image of him wet and shirtless away for future reference.

Although, it isn't the first time he's seen him wet and shirtless. (One hotel room had a bathtub that could fit two. The space was crowded, but through the soap suds there were tentative kisses and he laid there in Tim's arms, their legs intertwined, feeling Tim's chest rise with each warm breath. They'd been analyzing the most recent totheark video for hours. Tim said he didn't feel real and wanted to know if his body was tangible. So Jay helped him.)

His friends are having fun, and he should be out there in the water with them. But he's sick, Tim thinks he needs to be medicated, and no one will tell him what's going on. A dead weight coils tightly in his stomach.

Jay puts his sandwich down on the basket lid and stretches out on the blanket. Even if he feels like he has a parasite eating him from the inside out, his head feels clearer away from bed. He's glad he didn't give into his intrusive anxious thoughts and refuse to go. He may not be listening to their jokes or seeking out interaction, but he feels close to comfort. Not safe, though. That would be a stretch.

He's here, with good friends, who are on the edge and won't tell him what they know, but they're decent people nonetheless.

Getting here was a hassle, though. The wheelchair got stuck in rocks and weeds, and they had to switch to a different trail twice.

“It's not meant for this kind of terrain,” Brian explained.

“Why didn't you get one that could be used in the woods?” he asked.

Brian waved his hand and gave him an unclear answer, but Jay knows. Tim's flesh brother told him; they go to the outside and they get what is needed. They probably didn't know there's a difference between one wheelchair and another.

He finishes the rest of his sandwich for his starved-looking flesh brother.

Amy's head pops out of the water, and she flips her wet hair, spraying Seth with water. He squeals and ducks out of the way.

“I'm so hungry,” she whines dramatically.

“My sandwiches are guaranteed delicious, or your money back,” Jessica says.

“Good thing they're free!” Brian laughs.

She gives him a dirty look, and he apologizes whole-heartedly. “I'm sorry I made a joke at the expense of your sandwiches. They are delicious, and you are an excellent cook.” He takes a bite of his to prove that he means it.

Amy, soaking wet, joins Jay on the blanket. Thankfully, she is not nude. He scoots over to make room for her and to make sure he doesn't jab her with his elbows.

He realizes he didn't talked to Amy that much before he first lost contact with Alex. He barely knows her. She's pansexual, if he remembers correctly. She must be somewhat like Alex if she dated him. They met at an indie film festival. Same theatrics, same taste in movies.

He wipes his hands on his pants and stutters, “Uh. Hi.”

“Hey, Jay! You should go swimming with us. The water's not too cold and not too hot; it's perfect.” She winks at him. “There is a mostly naked person in there you could be hitting it up with. It's like they walked right out of a dating site ad, single and ready to mingle.”

He doesn't realize at first who she's hinting at. “Tim has made it clear he's dating Brian, Jessica's a lesbian, and Sarah thinks I'm weird.”

“I'll give you a clue. He taught himself how to be a doctor.”

He blinks. “Seth?”

“Bingo!” She giggles. “He had a crush on you all throughout college, did you know?”

The idea seems far-fetched to Jay. He can't imagine anyone thinking he's attractive, back in college or in the present. After finding a doctor out of state who would help him and who his insurance covered, he started hormones his first year of college, but the effects of testosterone couldn't change his lethargy and anxiety. There wasn't much to him besides his stamp collection. No one would have a crush on that.

“I doubt it,” he confesses.

“He did! I don't think he ever stopped. You could totally go for him.”

He picks at the grass. “I dunno.”

“It would be so cute if you two got together. Everyone's so gloomy. A new couple would be the sweetest thing. The dating pool around here isn't that big, you know?”

He shrugs. Amy glances at the river, where their friends are splashing each other and trying to drag Tim out deeper into the water.

“Come here, I got a secret to tell you.” Her eyes twinkle as she speaks. Jay leans in closer, and she whispers into his ear, “Meet me in the kitchen tonight. I'll show you the basement.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter starts out in the past, but slowly progresses to the present, sorry if that throws you off. i wanted to give jessica and sarah their own chapter but went off track. very far off track. i hope you can piece together some secrets through this chapter, albeit confusingly.
> 
> warnings: murder and related violence, medical stuff like needles and surgery, q slur, self-inflicted vomiting.

Jessica peeks through the window at the drive-way. Three weeks she's been waiting for Amy to come home, or Alex, anyone at all.

After a long day at work, she'd crashed watching re-runs of early _Desperate Housewives_ episodes when Amy shook her awake and told her, “Alex called. It's an emergency. Sorry, I'll do the dishes when I get back.” Half-awake, Jessica shrugged it off and went back to sleep.

Three weeks, and Amy's usually active Facebook is silent. Alex won't answer Jessica's calls, Amy won't reply to her texts, and the neighbors don't open their doors when Jessica knocks. She can't remember the smell of Amy's perfume, or the last time Alex looked well-rested.

Three weeks. She closes the blinds, and takes some more painkillers to stop the painful buzzing against her ribcage, like she's stuffed full of static. She hasn't been to work for a couple days, maybe a week. The only thing she's counting is how many days her roommates have been gone.

She doesn't touch the dishes, because Amy said she'll do them. The apartment is getting dirty. There is a stench in the air, sulfuric and suffocating, making her cough until her sides ache, but she's afraid to open the windows.

It waits outside her door, day and night, for three weeks straight.

When the smell comes back, after Tim cuts off contact and skips town, Jessica knows to lock her door and cover the windows in newspaper. But she forgets about the mirror in her bedroom.

It's taller than she is, and has a thin layer of dust on the surface, and when she lays in bed with nothing to do but glance at the mirror, she can only see shadows reflected back at her.

Tall, tall shadows.

.

“We can't tell them about this,” Tim pleads. He cradles Brian's head – from the moment they woke up, he hasn't budged.

“What if it doesn't work?”

“It _has_ to work!” There's tears in his eyes and a hitch to his voice. “It has to. They deserve a second chance. It has to work.”

“What if Brian doesn't wake up?”

“He will. He couldn't have...he didn't fall too far, did he? That couldn't have killed him. He could survive that. I know he's alive. He'll be okay.” Tim holds those words like a prayer in his mouth. “Brian will be okay. It'll be alright. Everything is fine.”

The basement is musty and full of cobwebs, and the river isn't too far away. The house is there, was there, has been there, waiting for them in the twilight. There's a room for everyone.

They're not in Rosswood, but it gives her the same vibe as the park.

Jessica doesn't trust the place, the trees, the animals that won't come close, the mud and dust they have to scrub off the furniture and walls. The kitchen cabinets are stocked with nonperishable food and the beds are made neatly. She tries every light switch she can find, and they all work. It reminds her of a grandmother's house – over the river and through the wood.

Tim tells her that the moon here is blood-orange. It's the harvest moon, or the hunter's moon, and both make a sickening amount of sense. When she asks if it ever wanes, he shakes his head, and gets back to cleaning the mold out of the shower.

They wait for the others to wake up.

Sarah does not wake up cussing and throwing chairs at them. She wakes up as a puddle on the basement's dirt floor. In the middle of fixing a leaky hole in the roof, Jessica hears the loud sobbing and runs to the basement.

There are red hand marks around her neck and a knife wound in her shoulder, and she has trouble breathing. But when she hugs Jessica back, Sarah is undoubtedly the woman she fell in love with, even if she is puking up mud and begging to die. She runs her hands down Sarah's back, lets her rid her body of riverwater and the static reverberating between systole and diastole – Jessica knows what that's like, she knows that it never really goes away forever - lets her cry on her shoulder and question why she's alive.

Click, click. Tim, slumped against the wall, flicks his lighter on and off. Click, click.

“I know it hurts, I'm sorry, but the static doesn't always hurt. You deserve to be here for the times when it doesn't hurt.” She holds her tightly, protectively.

“ 'S not that,” The hiccups obscure her Southern accent. “I r-remember dying. I was strangled, and stabbed, I was dead. I d-don't want to remember that faceless thing, oh God...”

“You don't have to.” Click, click.

Tim looks guilty when he comes forward, dirt under his stubby fingernails, shovel in a calloused hand. Sarah eyes him and his unruly hair and filthy flannel shirt. Her glare follows the lighter as he drops it. 

She clings to Jessica, and Tim has to pry her off.

“We'll help you, okay?” Jessica reassures her. Without Sarah's arms around her, she feels much less confident in this.

“Don't come any closer! Don't touch me!” Sarah cries out when Tim gets closer. “He's that guy in the mask, isn't he? Come near me, and I'll kick your teeth out!”

“We have to patch up that shoulder wound, or you'll bleed out.”

“Fuck you!”

“Please listen to him, Sarah.”

“Fuck you, too! Is that a needle? What's that other thing – what the Hell is that?! Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“Jessica, hold her still, or this is gonna hurt -”

“I've got steady hands.”

They turn to look, where, in the dark, they failed to notice the second person who woke up. He's tucked in the darkness, holding his knees to his chest. His blonde hair is matted with mud, and he talks as if it pains him to speak. The cut across his throat would explain why.

“I can help.” He trembles as he steps into the light cast by the bulb dangling on the ceiling.

Jessica recognizes him. “Seth?”

“How could you help? Do you have any idea what we need to do?” Tim demands.

“You said you need to patch her up. I could do that. I'm the cameraman, so I can hold my hands steady. Just tell me what to do,” Seth says.

“Why do you offer?”

“You can't keep your hands still.” He points to the lighter in the dirt, and they both look down at it.

Sarah takes the opportunity to push away Jessica. She punches Tim, and dives for the door. She tries to take down the figure in the doorway, but they dodge her fist, grab her arm, and swing her against the wall. She falls to the ground with a groan.

Seth looks like he wants to scream when he sees the person's face. 

“You said they wouldn't hurt her!” Jessica turns on Tim.

“She was trying to escape!”

“They knocked her out cold!”

“Hey, it's better than knocking her out with painkillers. She wouldn't want to be conscious for this.”

“It's not better! There, has to be another way, anything, there has to be something else we can do other than this -”

“She can die! We can let her stay dead, because there's no option besides this, or death. This is our second chance, Jessica. Do you want her to die?”

Jessica regards him, red in the face from shouting. “That's a loaded question.”

“It is. I'm rude because it gets things done. You can call me an asshole if it makes you feel better.”

“Asshole.”

He gives a hard laugh, three sharp _ha ha ha's_ that make Jessica want to punch him like Sarah did.

Then he bends over as he coughs violently, and she thinks of Brian in the kitchen, lifeless, swaddled in a blanket like a baby. And that misty look in his eyes when they wake up to another morning where Brian hasn't opened his.

Tim spits blood into the dirt, and rubs the sides of his forehead. “This is giving me a headache. Let's get it over with, or leave her to the wolves. Whatever you want.”

“You're an asshole, but I believe in you,” Jessica says. “God, somehow I ended up trusting you.”

“I'm not God,” he laughs again, sourly, at his own joke.

“Who is that?” Seth whispers. He hasn't looked away from the doorway.

“If you listen to them, they'd want you to believe they're a god,” Tim says.

“But are they?”

“You'll find out when you get your own. Now, you offered to help, right? I have a needle, and _this._ Put it in, and sew her up with the needle. Simple as that. Any questions, comments, concerns?”

“No. I don't need to know anything.” He gingerly takes the needle. “I don't want to know why I'm alive, she's alive, or why you need to do this. Keep me out of the loop.”

“Will do.”

.

Over the treetops, the first signs of dawn appear, golden and desensitized. Tim told her she could have stayed in the house, but she didn't leave. She stayed and witnessed every second, and she can only think of the _Desperate Housewives_ theme song playing over again in her head.

The sunrise is holy fire purging the night away, and Jessica watches the burning end of Tim's cigarette as he puts it to his lips and inhales. It's his last pack, the only pack he sneaked in with him and a lighter.

Cigarettes don't mix well with forests. They won't bring him any from outside.

Tim lets the smoke sit in his lungs for a moment before he says, “Sarah won't change. They won't want the host to know of their existence. She won't remember what happened. She'll be okay.”

“It's different with you and Brian.” She glances at the person squatting by the trees. They sniff the ground, head titled, silently judging. They're looking for something, someone, but they can't go too far from Tim.

“I think it's because of the, you know, the _thing._ Like a chemical reaction. It brings them out.”

“Why did you have them before...this?”

He takes another slow drag of his cigarette, mostly thinking of an answer, mostly stalling for time so he doesn't have to respond. “Honestly, I don't know. I've had mine with me for as long as I can remember. Which isn't very dependable, actually.”

“Maybe it doesn't matter.”

.

When they peel open Brian's crusted-over eyelids, his eyeballs are bloodshot and rolled to the back of his head. Tim calls his name, and it echoes through the kitchen. They wait with bated breath for him to show signs of life, and he does – his mouth opens and closes like a fish, and he blinks, breathes through his nose sharply, blinks again, and his eyes shoot open.

He hisses, “God, God, God!”

“Brian!” Tim squeezes his hand. “Brian, it's me, it's Tim -”

Jessica and Brian don't hear them come up. They pad into the kitchen, shoulder to shoulder, and Jessica smells them before she sees them.

Pine needles and the smell of the outdoors clings to their soaking wet jackets, and their gloves have grass stains on them. One of them leans on a stick. Their legs shake, and the other has to hold them up for them to stand.

“Holy shit, it worked.” Tim's laugh bubbles out of his chest, wild and ecstatic. “You found them in the fucking river?”

Tim's flesh brother nods.

.

The sunlight makes Sarah's hair glow. They're sprawled out next to each other on their own picnic blanket, sandwiches on plates between them. She rolls her shoulders – the stitches are unnoticeable by now – and smiles at Jessica. “What are you looking at?”

“You look like you've got a halo.” She grins cheekily. “Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?”

Her laugh is silvery and perfect, and Jessica leans forward to pull a strand of her hair out of her face. She can smell Sarah's shampoo and it makes her heart beat faster.

Amy wolf-whistles and hollers, “K-I-S-S-I-N-G! Two big queers lesbian-ing!”

Sarah giggles, and Jessica can't look away from her lips.

“Hey, Sarah,” she says gently. “Sometimes I wonder, just...why did we break up?”

Sarah bites her lip. “Uh, shit. I dunno. I think about it too.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I feel like...it was a mistake.”

“Oh.” Her heart drops. “You think us dating, that was a mistake?”

“No! No, oh my God, not at all. I think us breaking up was a mistake.”

Jessica can't hold back a broad smile. “You feel that way?”

“We were stressed out. And it wasn't because our relationship was bad, it was because of...you know. That stuff. If we had stayed with each other, kept each other safe, I think it would have been better. Together.”

Jessica nods. “Togeth -”

Before she can finish speaking, Jay jumps off his blanket like he's been shocked and lurches towards the river. Amy calls out after him, but he staggers into the water. Jessica can see him shoving his fingers down his throat, and he makes a horrible gagging noise as he forcefully vomits. There's a blur of movement as Tim runs to him.

Jay's face looks towards the sky, and he spreads his arms out like wings. The halo of his hair makes him seem like a ravaged fallen angel, where Sarah's made her look beautiful. He screams what sounds like _”the ichor runs out like molten lead.”_

Tim grabs him around the waist and pulls him towards the bank. Jay's shirt rides up over his stomach, and, underneath his red bandages, his stitches are bulging. The wound from the bullet in his side is open and bleeding.

He's frothing at the mouth as Tim sets him down in the grass. Everybody jumps up and crowds around Tim and Jay.

Amy's on the verge of crying. “I didn't do anything! We were talking, and then he -”

Seth pushes his way through the group, and shouts, “Is he okay? What happened? What's wrong?”

Tim could kill Seth with the daggers in his eyes. “You wanna help? You're the goddamn doctor! You tell me!”

Seth freezes up. “Uh, I -”

“Tim.” Brian shakes Tim's shoulder. “I don't mean to freak you out, but _someone_ is here. We need to go.”

Seth scrambles up to get the wheelchair. He leaps backward when something lands next to the picnic basket. He picks it up, and says, “It's a...book. A medical encyclopedia, to be specific.”

Everyone's heads turn to look where it came from.

On the other side of the river, standing under the shade of the trees, is Alex. As soon as he's spotted, he slinks back into the woods.

The moment is broken by Jay's snuffling. Tim rips off a piece of his shirt and wraps it around his middle.

“Grab everything. We're going,” he barks.

“What about this book?” Seth holds it out.

“Throw it in the river.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! this fanfic now has a soundtrack! check it out http://8tracks.com/softgrungegreaser/ark-awaits
> 
> im really fucking up the chronology oops. takes place before amy or alex or jay have woken up. warnings: murder, violence, emotional manipulation.

They bring in things that amuse them, or maybe they find some alien meaning in the household items. The basement is starting to look like a landfill – balls of yarn, broken crayons and chalk, empty soda cans, flat tires, a spiral ring notebook wedged between a jar of bendy straws and a used lint roller.

Tim decides to put the junk to use.

First, he draws a salt circle around his bed. Their laughter, wet and heavy, fishy and saline, echoes up the stairs. They come to his doorway and spot him sitting on the edge of his bed with a saltshaker in hand. Their eyes take in the circle he made, and their smiles drop.

He gets to the point right away. “You lied to me.”

He didn't think he would ever get used to seeing their mouths move but hearing something else entirely. He hears English, but sees them talk like the shadow people in the corner of his eyes when he's unreal, nonexistent, dissociated. 

“Is that what this is about?” Brian's flesh brother asks.

“This wasn't meant to be permanent. Why are we still here?”

“Because that is where we currently exist.” A laugh, ugly and cruel. 

“And where's Jay? You told me everyone would wake up. Where is he?”

“There's been a bit of...an inconvenience.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“It means there's been an inconvenience.”

As they're talking, they snake into the room until they're toe to toe with the line of salt on the hard wood floors. He feels a cold terror wind up his spine, hoping that the barrier will hold – and his flesh brother swipes their foot across the salt and steps over to the bed.

“You're going to have to try harder than that.” They put their hands on his shoulder, and he sees his flesh brother grinning before he blacks out.

He wakes up in the basement, at nightfall, and can't remember how he got there.

They eat away at memory like maggots. Through the darkness, he can pick out newspaper clippings on a pile of garbage bags, and a bottle of aspirin balanced on top. Baby aspirin. The clippings about a wildfire are older than he is.

.

“It's not fair. They get their own bodies now. How come they still use ours?” Tim punctuates each word with a jab of his fork.

“I think they do it to mock us. Like, to remind us that they're in control,” Brian suggests. “You know how mine is. Apathetic, cold. They like to make fun of us.”

“This food is really good, huh?” Seth says, to remind them that he's there.

.

They soil Tim's mattress. He wakes up in his own piss, and his pillow's stuffed with papers. Charcoal drawings of him, the Operator, his friends. They're laughing at him, from deep in his gut.

He has to clean himself and his bed – he takes a deep breath, reminds himself that they are depending on the flesh brothers. He will have control of his life, soon.

They drag out Jessica by her hair and try to drown her in the river. Sarah and Seth chase them down, and they're howling, lips pulled back over white teeth, and they're cackling, forcing down Jessica's head into the water. She drags her nails over Brian's face and leaves a bruise on Tim's arm. When Sarah jumps into the water, they release Jessica and scatter to the trees.

Tim and Brian return days later, and they're surprised the door isn't locked. Jessica makes them lunch, and Seth sits wordlessly in the dining room as Sarah grinds her teeth together.

“They _hurt_ you,” she says to Jessica.

“I forgive Tim and Brian. But not them.” She cuts the lettuce too deep and marks the wood board.

“I've never liked Tim. But I thought Brian could be trusted, and I was really proven wrong, huh? They're dangerous - ”

“We are.” Tim comes into the kitchen, and walks right up to Sarah. “We're dangerous. And I would tell you, you can leave! You can go, I wouldn't stop you, and if you feel unsafe, you should get out of here while you can. I would tell you all that, but I don't know how to escape. So we're taking a vote.”

“A...vote?”

“A vote, to see if Brian and I should leave. We'll leave the house. We won't bother any of you. We wouldn't be able to promise that the...other us would stay away, but there's knives in the kitchen. Stab us. There's matchsticks in the basement. Set me on fire, I don't care. We're taking a vote.”

“What would you do, live out in the woods?” Jessica asks.

“We made a little cabin, while we were gone. It's unstable, sure, but we would live there if it makes everyone feel safer.”

They sit around the table in the dining room; nobody looks each other in the eye. The windows are open, and the wind is just enough to shake the trees outside and lift the edges of the table cloth.

Brian clears his throat and speaks officially, but there's a quiet fear in his words. “So. The vote. Raise your hand if you would be okay with Tim and I staying in the house. That means the flesh brothers, as they call themselves, will also be living here.”

After a moment, Jessica raises her hand. Sarah and Seth don't make a move.

“Raise your hand if you want us to leave. We promise not to come back, and you may use force if we come near you. On us, or the flesh brothers.”

Sarah raises her hand. Jessica's chair screeches as she moves a little away from the table.

A minute passes, and Seth still hasn't moved.

“Seth? What's your vote?”

“I...” He crosses his arms, looking like he's straining to stay put in his seat. His knees bob up and down. “I'm...I can't make a decision. I can't.”

“We need you to break the tie, Seth.”

“Please don't make me,” he mumbles.

“What about you two?” Sarah asks. “You and Tim. You should vote.”

“That's...it doesn't work that way.” Brian looks baffled.

“I vote we leave,” Tim says.

Sarah nods, and looks at Brian. “And you?”

“That isn't fair, making them do this!” Jessica exclaims.

“I vote we stay,” says Brian. He gives Tim a guilty look. “I'm sorry. But we deserve a place in this house, too. You're doing this to hurt yourself, and I'm not going to let them make you do this - ”

“I vote they stay,” Seth speaks up. All eyes turn to him, and he shrinks under the attention. “I vote...they don't go. That breaks the tie.”

“That means they stay.” Sarah's look of disbelief matches Tim's.

“Good.” Jessica stands up. “Now I have a lunch to finish making. For my friends.”

.

He waits for when they go out to collect more useless crap for the basement. Tim nails a crucifix to the space above his door, second.

He paces back and forth inside his room, waiting for them to slink back into the house. He runs his hands through his hair, rubs his palms together until the friction makes them bleed, picks his nails apart. He scratches his arms and pulls out the hair – there's a bald spot, now, on his biceps.

“You know what I need?” he says to Brian, laying face-down on Tim's bed. Soon it will be the bed they share, but he doesn't have much mobility as of now. He needs a cane, but Sarah's the only one of them who knows how to whittle. The stick he had before gave him splinters that bother him to this day.

Tim sighs. “A fucking cigarette. That'd be just perfect right now. Or my meds. I can feel my brain pulsing.”

Brian doesn't respond, and Tim stops pacing.

“Brian?” he asks. “How did you get up the stairs?”

“I crawled.”

They are grinning at him.

.

It won't do anything to restrain them, but it's the biggest insult he can think of. Tim buries their masks, third.

He clears a corner of junk and digs a hole in the basement's dirt floor. No matter how long it takes, he wants to dig it as deep as he can, and plans on covering the hole with their own garbage so they can't find and claw it up.

It takes most of the day, the precious time when they leave the house alone, but he digs, and digs, and digs.

Everything feels sore. Tim keeps digging. His hands keep shaking with the need for nicotine, and it slows down his work. He sees glimpses of his ragged face in the mirror, propped against the farthest wall, and wants to break it. The damn thing doesn't work anymore. Not both ways, apparently. He could be picking out glass shards from his knuckles for weeks and he wouldn't regret breaking that awful, patronizing mirror.

The hole is like a narrow grave. He leans on his shovel, wipes the sweat off his forehead, and glares at the masks. The memory lapses, the loss of control, the violent urges – the masks represent what he hates about himself, and he hates it even more for the fact.

It feels good dropping the masks into a grave.

“Sarah thinks we're mentally unstable.”

Tim whips around, and his flesh brother is looming in the doorway, holding a knife to Seth's throat.

“Would have rather used Sarah. But this one didn't struggle. Thinks you and I are unstable, too. He's right, isn't he?” They push Seth forward as they go to peer down the hole Tim made.

“Don't hurt - ”

“Not stable without me. Need me.”

“Put down the knife.”

“Aren't in a position to be giving me any commands. Hah! Don't have any leverage. I, however, do have leverage.” They tap the knife against his skin. Seth doesn't understand what they're saying, but he tenses up at the touch of the knife.

“Leverage? What for?”

“Demands.”

“What kind of demands?”

They hold out something in the hand not holding the knife. It's a mask, marked with sharpie to look like a skull.

“Jay will come eventually.”

“No.”

“We have chosen him.”

_“No.”_

“Not up to you, or even us, to decide. As you said, like a chemical reaction. But, want you to agree.”

“I said, no.”

They press the knife up, so the top of the blade cuts into Seth's chin. He's been trying not to breath, but he sucks in air through his teeth. “Tell me you will give us Jay.”

“You can't. You can't do this.”

“Tell me. You will give us Jay. Won't even have to remember agreeing to this.”

“Don't...don't do that to Jay, please.” His voice cracks. “I'm begging you.”

“We don't have power over what will happen to him. But. Admit responsibility. We're the liars. There are expectations, yes.”

“What did I do? What did I do wrong for him to have to be like you and I?”

“Don't tell, but wasn't us. Friend. Friend did it. Cut him loose. Angry at us, so they cut him loose. Maybe had a plan, maybe wanted to end up here. But he did not die they way he was supposed to.”

 _“Supposed_ to - ”

“Didn't die all the way.”

“Didn't...all the way...?”

“That is not a good thing. You know, how Jay died?”

“He was. ” Tim chokes saying it. “Shot. I watched the video. What he recorded.”

“Yes, and?”

“He was shot. That's what happened.”

“Not all that happened. He was shot. He dragged himself into the nearest room. To die in. Not alone. Did you notice, what was there?”

“You mean, the thing?”

“It takes the bodies after they are dead.”

“And?”

“But it took Jay as he was dying.”

His heart stops, despite the fact that he doesn't know what that implies. The thought of Jay – his shaky, bloody hands, his frantic breathing...and the last thing he had to see was - “What does that mean for him?”

“Means there is an inconvenience for us.”

“Then fix it. Bring him here safely.”

“Admit. Responsibility.”

“What the hell do you want me to say? It's my fault Jay's going to be fucked up when he gets here. There, is that good enough for you?”

“No. Like this. _I am to blame. I am the source._ Say that.”

He repeats those exact words, words he's said to himself many times before and out loud half as much, and he burns with shame knowing Seth can understand his side of the conversation.

His flesh brother pockets the knife and kicks Seth into the dirt. He shakily gets up, and the look he gives Tim is a punch in the gut. He scrambles towards the doorway.

They stand closer to Tim. He breathes in, closes his eyes, and waits to black out. He feels a hand on his shoulder, but minutes pass and nothing changes. He opens his eyes, and they're nowhere to be found.

There are three masks in the grave. He's too fucking tired of this day to fill it back in; he drops the shovel and joins Seth at the doorway.

“Are you alright?” he asks, wiping his dirty hands on his pants.

There's no blood. Seth's eyes are hollow. “Wouldn't be the first time I was threatened with a knife.”

“I'm sorry, Seth. I'm so sorry. Genuinely.”

“I wanted out of the loop,” he whispers. “I just wanted to be kept out of the loop.”

.

Tim doesn't try holy water, rosemary, or candles. The crucifix is torn down, but he finds a rosary under his pillow one morning. The irony makes him laugh - that his depraved fingers can touch something holy and he won't burn.

They've humiliated him, and he can't do anything to fight back.

They're in control of his life.

Sacrificing himself to fight for his friends seems like a vague noble greater cause, but it gets him out of bed in the morning. They think he knows what he's doing, despite what he says otherwise. They think he's waiting for the others to wake up, and then he'll lead them to the promised land.

He's melting. He's rotting. He's in the nexus between a good life, a better place, a future that isn't so hard on him, and giving in.

And he's forgetting why he tried in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the shadow people are a hallucination thing, not a big plot point thing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy valentines day, here is something disgusting. warnings for insects, animal death, vomit.

Upstairs, they can hear frantic shouting and the floorboards crying out as people hurry back and forth. Jay won't stop screaming, and Tim keeps saying, “What went wrong? Why isn't it staying in him? What the hell went wrong?”

Their head hurts. There's too many humans, too many heads to crawl into, too many memories to sap. Amy will wake up with a pounding migraine tomorrow, Sarah will sleep for two whole days, and Seth won't be able to sleep at all. The blood and the screaming will be but a bad nightmare to move on from. But, for now, they're demanding answers from Tim, and it satisfies them, knowing he must have a headache as bad as theirs.

They think of the days when the house was hollow and hallow, dying on the inside, consumed by vines and moss on the outside. There was a hornet's nest on the second floor, and they liked to listen to the faint buzzing that came from the shattered skylight in what is now Amy's bedroom. They think of the wind whistling through the grass that used to come up to their waist, before Tim cut it down, and the frogs and crickets that used to come in droves when it rained. They would pluck their squirming bodies out of puddles and mud, and they would eat them.

The frogs tasted wet and soft, like chewing gum, and the crickets were more bitter, more crunchy. They miss the hornet's nest; the food practically came into their home and asked to be eaten.

Their friend sits outside on the porch steps. Tired of listening to the noise of panic, they get up to join them. Their knees lock when they take a step, and they lean onto the cane, still unused to walking in this way. Tim's flesh brother looks up when they sit down, and they notice their furrowed brow and offer a handful of worms.

“Thank you,” Brian's flesh brother says, stuffing the worms into their mouth. “Humans are so stressful.”

“Humans,” Tim's flesh brother grunts.

They think of how they used to press their masks together, ski mask to plastic mask, imitating a kiss. In the abandoned hospital, against the wall, they cooed like the crickets in their stomachs. They glance at Tim's flesh brother. The setting sun makes their stoic face look the way it should, eyes outlined with shadows, mouth set in a leering smile.

Jay lets out a shriek and throws himself against the wall. He must have broken out of the rope.

Brian's flesh brother swallows the worms and licks their lips. “We should do that thing again.”

“Hm?”

“That thing, with our lips.”

“Talking?”

“No, we're doing that now.”

“Oh. What thing then?”

“The touching.” They take the others hands and put them to their lips. “Like this. The touching, but with your lips.”

“Oh, that thing.” They let their hands drop into their lap, and they scoot closer to Brian's flesh brother. Their lips press together clumsily – Tim's flesh brother has their mouth open, and Brian's has their lips pursed in a tight line. They try again, and this time they accidentally bite each other.

Jay throws up out of the skylight and the vomit lands inches away from them. He cries to the heavens, _“The moon is waning! Help me, help me –”_

Tim grabs him and tries to get him away from the window. They laugh, watching Jay flail and Tim attempting to calm him down. Amy appears from behind, and she manages to get Jay away from the skylight before he jumps out.

“Humans,” Brian's flesh brother cackles.

Their third attempt at kissing goes smoothly, even though their noses get in the way and they don't know what to do with their hands. They kiss like worship, like their mouths are altars that taste of dirt and dead bugs.

When another scream resonates from inside the house, Tim's flesh brother pulls away to ask, “He will be okay?”

“Does it matter?”

They look down. “He will be okay, yes?”

“Why do you care?”

“....Don't, I don't.” They press their fingers to the lips of Brian's flesh brother reverently. “Only care about you.”

“You've gone soft,” they mumble, but they go in for another, longer kiss anyway.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the abrupt hiatus.
> 
> @smallish im sorry. i lied. its the next chapter that will have a lot of alex. things had to change around a bit, oops. also i made another lie in the last chapter, THIS is the most disgusting chapter yet. i dont even know how to warn for it. lets just say, if body horror and the idea of leeches bothers you, be careful reading this.

An old scarecrow, straw bursting from its seams, sways in the center of the field. Its spine is a termite-infested stick lodged in the dirt, and its arms are outstretched like Jesus on the crucifix. A sun hat balances on its head, casting a shadow over its gaunt, deflated face.

Jay takes a step towards it and falls onto his knees. His mouth is dry, but a hot, wet fire spills over his fingers. He tries to put out the flame by pressing it back inside him. Smoke eats through his lungs, and the smell of melting plastic drips from the tapes buried in his skin. His hands wrap around bone, and he thinks it's one of his ribs. He thinks.

Black and white static funnels down to a single point behind the camera lens, beyond his reach, his understanding. Not a single point, but an arc of blood smearing down his shirt.

Jay lets his hand drop away from his side. The bone _(the bullet)_ inside him grinds against his organs. His body has never been his own, but he forces himself to regain control, to move a muscle, to belong in his skin. He runs his tongue over his teeth and feels one of his molars coming loose. He digs his fingers into the ground and pulls out the thin yellow grass until his fingernails are tender.

The land around him is bald and ugly, and the wind blows into his stinging eyes. Punishing him. Or, testing him, initiating him.

He remembers – Alex stuffing his face with popcorn and pointing out the symbolism behind the camera angles and lighting, Brian inviting them to his younger brother's bar mitzvah, Amy taking her uncle's boat out to the lake for the weekend and bringing them plus several cases of beer along, Tim calling his name – and he forgets. He hears mockingbirds, sparrows, blue jays, Tim calling his name louder and louder, more desperately, more birds, more static.

They have all been chosen for a divine purpose. Their flesh is a host for a greater cause.

(waning gibbous)

Jay claws his way towards the scarecrow. He fights the migraine splitting his head apart and makes his way to the center of the field, and finally, _finally,_ he doesn't hear birdsong. He hears the hot wind picking up clouds of dust, he hears crickets buzzing around him, _he hears his own thoughts._

The first thought he has is, “Where is my camera?”

Against the light of the setting sun, Tim's silhouette is dark and bold. He steps out of the glare, and he is beautiful, holy, a human godsend. Jay looks at him, slack-jawed, as Tim helps him out of the dirt. His knees are weak and he stumbles, but Tim catches him.

“I'm sorry,” Tim whispers. “None of this is being recorded.”

“How can I be sure any of this is real?” Jay cries. Around them the air is cool and sweet-smelling, but the sky is the color of rotten fruit. “How can I be sure this happened, that any of this happened, if I don't – if it isn't recorded? What if I miss something? How can I be sure that I'm real, or you're real, or anything we're saying is –”

Tim takes his hand. He runs his fingers over Jay's wrist and follows the trail of his veins with his thumb. “You know what I do when I can't tell if something is real?”

Jay stares at his hands. “What?”

Tim presses down until he can feel his pulse. “One, two, three. I count my heartbeat. Like this.” His touch is soft, and the rhythmic _ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump_ picks up in pace.

“Four, five, six,” Jay counts with him.

“Seven, eight, nine.”

“Ten, eleven, twelve.” He keeps his voice low, even though they're alone in the field. “Tim, you know...I've missed you. I've missed you so much.” He glances up, but Tim is looking down at their hands and counting under his breath. He goes on, “I know I get to see you and talk to you, but I needed to touch you and know you're alive and real. That I'm alive and real, too. That house, those woods – they don't feel real. I don't feel real there.”

“Twenty-two, twenty-three...”

“And I've missed you so much it hurts.” Jay hears his own voice crack and winces. He clears his throat and continues, his pulse going faster as he talks louder, “When I used to get scared, you would be there. But now you have Brian, and all I have is fear and guilt and, no one there when I wake up, no one there to reassure me, no one there to touch – ”

“Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven.”

Tim is warm, masculine, living and breathing, and Jay takes in a deep breath, wanting to remember how he smells besides him. “I kind of love you, Tim. A lot? A whole lot. Several hundred whole lots. Thousands.” He laughs nervously. “We were being hunted by some horrible, otherworldly thing, and I was falling in love. I know we slept with each other but we never talked about, _love,_ or staying together afterward, anything too permanent. I feel like I'm breaking some silent code, by telling you this. Is it bad? I don't know. I don't know! I feel like I don't know anything!”

He pauses, but he can't wait for Tim to respond. “I don't know how you feel, but I know I love you. I love you – there, I said it, no stuttering, or mumbling, or anything! I need you to know this. I can't _not_ say it out loud.”

“Fifty-five. Fifty-six. Fifty-seven.”

Jay pulls his hands away from Tim. “Please, just say something!” he begs.

Tim observes him for a long, horrible stretch of time, and then his face cracks into a wide grin. “You want to kiss him?” he laughs. “You want him to touch you? You want him to love you back?”

Tim advances towards him, and Jay takes a step back. “Tim...?”

“You interest me.” They lick their lips, and their long, black tongue, like an eel attached to them, leaves a strand of drool hanging from their mouth. It falls to the dirt with a _splat_.

Jay recognizes with a jolt of horror the same substance that was on the towels, the same black, sticky mud he woke up covered in.

“Want to know things you aren't meant to understand. Human flesh is very soft, tender, broken easily. But you keep wanting to know, you keep hunting, you keep getting hurt. And you want more!” Their laugh is harsh and grating, and Jay wants to cover his ears so he doesn't have to suffer it. “I like it. I like you.”

“What are you?”

“I am...a brother of your flesh.” They gesture towards him. “You, the host. And I –” They lick their lips again, watching him with dark eyes. “ – the parasite.”

The wind snatches the scarecrow's hat and carries it away across the field. The scarecrow groans, and its body strains against the nails pinning it to the stick.

Jay doesn't look away from Tim's flesh brother. He presses a hand to his stomach and feels the the bone extruding from his skin. “Parasite? Oh, God, please don't tell me you... _laid eggs_ in me or, fuck, do I even want to know what to know what's inside me?”

“Organs and blood, mostly. But you are chosen. You, the host, always want to know. It is a part of you, the wanting, and now it is a part of you, my knowing.” They cough, and a glob of black spit plops to the ground. “Your friends. And my friends. We make a circle. Remember when you hit me with a flashlight? It is forgiven in the circle. Isn't that beautiful?”

Jay knows he should be frightened or sickened, but he feels a sense of calm washing over him the more they speak. “No one else tells me anything. Why do you?”

“I like you.” This time he doesn't run away when they walk closer to him. “A whole lot.”

Everything about this is fucked up. He doesn't care. “Several hundred whole lots?”

“Thousands.”

When they kiss him, it isn't anywhere near the same as kissing Tim. Their lips meet with an awkward, wet smack, and there's a great deal of spit, tongue, and teeth involved. They kiss Jay roughly, hands gripping his hair and pulling him closer, but he yields to their touch. He knows they are dangerous, but it only makes him like it more. He opens his mouth, and their long, black tongue finds its way inside, filling his mouth, going down his throat, wriggling into his stomach.

Cold, slick, crawling in his guts. Jay gags and pulls away for air.

“Are you disgusted?” they ask him. He can see a tongue in their mouth still, but then what did they put in him? Why does it always seem to come back to what they put inside him?

They pull up their shirt, and something writhes under their skin like water snakes on the river's surface. “Look, I have one too. It's been there for so long that it's starting to rot.” Their lips pull back over their teeth, and they are jagged, sharp, deadly. “The hospital burned down, but I helped little Tim. Gave him a second chance. And he was so lonely, I thought, why not give him a friend? I found a companion for him – what's his name, Brian, yes, and I gave him my friend. A beautiful circle! You were shot. We helped you. We are leeches, we live to feed off you, but we help you. Give you a second chance. Another opportunity to keep hunting!”

For once in his life, Jay doesn't want to know the full truth.

They snicker. “Do you like the birds, Jay?”

“Please,” the scarecrow whimpers. “Please, help me.”

Jay looks up – and he knows the scarecrow's face. He reels back in disgust.

Alex struggles to free himself. Streaks of blood run down his face. “Help me. Please. Please save me, Jay.”

The parasite laughs and laughs and laughs. Slimy, vulgar. Beautiful.

“Don't let me save myself.”

(waning quarter)

“Please wake up, Jay – ”

He lurches forward in his bed, gasping. He flails against the arms wrapped around him and tries to scream, but a hand covers his mouth.

“You have to be quiet.” He looks up at Seth's face above him. “You have to trust me when I say that I want to help you. So, please, don't scream.”

He meets Seth's eyes and nods. Seth relinquishes his hold on him, and he sits up slowly, judging the room around him. They're alone in the darkness, and the room looks about the same as the last time he was here, except for the coil of rope in the corner and the bucket by his bed that smells of vomit. He feels rope burns on his arms and an accusation creeps up in his throat, but he doesn't voice his suspicions.

Through the window, he can see how empty the cold, pitch-black night looks without the moon.

Seth whispers, “I'm getting you out of here.”

“To where?”

“We can live in the woods,” Seth says urgently. “You're not safe here. _We_ aren't safe. Alex is out there, but he's only one person and there's a lot more in this house. I heard he started living in the shack Tim and Brian built, but we can – ”

“Is it midnight?”

“Uh.” Seth pauses. “I think so?”

“Take me to the kitchen,” Jay demands. “I need to meet Amy. I need to see the basement.”

Something flashes in Seth's eyes, but it's gone the moment he notices it. “No. I need to get you out of here.”

“Please,” Jay implores him. He tries to pout, but he probably looks as if he's grimacing instead. “Please, Seth? Take me to the kitchen?”

“I...” Seth frowns. “I don't know. We should hurry.”

He leans closer and grabs the collar of Seth's shirt, bringing him to his face. “Please...?” 

Seth stops breathing. Jay brushes their lips together, not in a kiss, but close enough that their noses are touching. He asks again, “Take me to the kitchen?”

“Okay,” Seth breathes out. “I. Uh. Okay.”

“Thank you.” He lets go of Seth's shirt, and for a half-second, Seth looks like he's going to fall over on him. 

He blinks a couple times and straightens out his shirt. He smiles broadly, and then goes right back to business. “You can't really walk since, um, you've lost a lot of blood recently, from your wounds opening up. So you'll have to lean on me for support.”

Seth helps him up and loops his arm around his shoulder. Jay can feel Seth's heart beating, and he unconsciously starts counting it in his head.

Together they quietly shuffle out of the room.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heres something to motivate me to get back into this

The belly of the forest hurts like he does. He wonders if it's body knew once how to suffer, if maybe it had forgotten what it was like to feel pain. Maybe it had become desensitized to it's own pain and had to live vicariously through his suffering. The teeth and tongues snapping at him in his dreams. The river like an umbilical cord connected to the forest. The porcelain people held by their throats. It's there, watching him, but these nights he stares right back at it.

It does not take much to break people made of bone ash. The sunlight is dust settling on their frozen faces. He does not feel real. He does not feel real. He does not recognize these thoughts because they aren't as violent as they usually are. He listens, he listens – animal mouths smacking with their fresh kill, the moon swelling full of its blood. Familiar dreams. Familiar demands. This is his body, this is his hurt. He stares at it, unguarded. It knows it doesn't take much to break them, but it does it anyway.

It destroys their lives, and it watches. It turns them on each other like wolves, it takes everything they love and value and makes them sickened by it. It is their sickness and their burden and their selves, _it is US, it is USING us, it is the evil in our -_

“Alex?”

His hand is cramping up but he doesn't want to stop writing. But they call out his name again, louder, so he grudgingly gets up and goes for the door.

Behind him. “Alex.”

He pauses.

“Alex, open the door.”

Besides him. “Alex. Alex.”

He sits back down and keeps writing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	12. Chapter 12

I will not be finishing this. There's a myriad of reasons why and what I could say here, but I'll stick to the positive - I'm proud of myself for sticking to a single project for so long, I'm happy for the chance it gave me to focus and develop my writing skills, I'll always appreciate the support I received and the people I met through this project of mine. Thank you to everyone who took the time to leave kudos and/or comments. And since I hate when fanfics discontinue without ever knowing what will happen, here's what I had vaguely planned out.

What I had started for the next chapter: "The stairs announce each step they take with a weary groan. The wood floor is cold and hard against Jay's bare feet, and he walks on his toes, heels raised, like a dog. He doesn't want to be dragged along, but he feels more light-headed than he lets on. His body feels – empty, drained, as if his organs have been scooped out and his skull picked clean. Seth is a good inch taller than him, so Jay buries his face in the crook of his neck, breathing heavily as he tries not to faint.

His flesh brother seethes under his skin. His stomach turns, but he made his choice. They feel it, his baptism by rot; they taste it in his blood. He made his decision, and they worm their way through the cavity of his brain. He has been chosen, he has given up to divinity, and he will know.

 _You will lead me to the ark,_ they tell him in the marrow of his bones.

“That's weird,” Seth whispers. He keeps his voice down so it doesn't echo in the high arched ceiling above their heads. “Does the house feel different to you, or is that just me?”

Jay looks around. The wallpaper is blackened as if a fire swept through and burnt itself out in the time they were upstairs.

When Jay used to sneak around the house, he would count the steps. Kept him awake. He remembers how many there were. He remembers how many there's supposed to be."

Amy takes Jay and Seth to the basement and digs up the masks to show them. The masks have multiplied and there's enough for everyone in the house. Jay realizes the mirror in the basement isn't a mirror but the lens of a camera. Cue collective freaking out and general what the hell does this mean, then cue Masky/Hoody. There's a fight, and Amy escapes with Jay to the woods. She takes him to Alex's. Jay doesn't know what he expected to happen, but he didn't expect to find this sad shell of his old friend who's become obsessed with figuring out what the Operator is. Alex tries to talk to him about his thousand weird theories, but it just upsets Amy and makes Jay remember his own obsession and realize how self-destructive it is. Jay freaks out and runs away.

I didn't plan out exactly what would happen next but I knew, in the end, everyone would survive. I don't like killing off characters. I was going to end it on the same note as the canon, unsure and heavy with the weight of trauma, but with the hope that everyone has a chance to be okay. It was important to me that they could keep living and have a chance at being happy even with their flesh brothers attached to them. Life with mental illness is finding your way through the tunnel without any light - you feel so powerless and in the dark but you do it, you keep doing it, you have to. That's still important for me to write.

Final notes:

\- Alex's flesh brother is the Operator, who he can talk to. Obviously it hasn't been very good for him. It's also why Jay reacted so strongly when Alex was nearby. Jay's flesh brother is highly susceptible to the others, and his has the power to "wake up" the brothers that haven't in Seth, Jessica, Amy, and Sarah. This was going to be A Thing to do with the birds he hears. It's the voices, in a way, of the other brothers. Basically once they hatch/"wake up" they go quiet. Complete opposite of what birds do.

\- All the flesh brothers have their own unique weirdness related to the senses like Jay's. Jessica's, I remember, had to do with smell. This was a subplot I never got to explore thoroughly. It had to do with the thing that was put into their bodies.

\- And that thing Seth had to put in their bodies? It's eggs. Weird gross parasitic ritualistic eggs for flesh brothers to hatch from. Luv it.

\- Alex is frequently visited by Masky and Hoody, who bring him the books he uses to continue his investigation. It's uncertain if they want to help his search or if they find it funny. Probably both.

\- Originally, when I wanted more references to _Where the Wild Things Are,_ the Ark was the river and how they got into this world and how they would get out. Then I thought it should be the tunnel in Rosswood Park, which is why the summary references a tunnel. Then it was the mirror/camera lens in the basement. Finally I realized I had no clue, I didn't want the Ark to be certainly anything, and I'm a scoundrel and a fraud.

If you're curious about anything else, feel free to ask me @surrealjock on tumblr. I can't promise I have an answer because it's been a while but I'll do what I can.

Thanks for reading. Take care of yourselves.


End file.
